Organizations such as on-line retailers, Internet service providers, search providers, financial institutions, universities, and other computing-intensive organizations often conduct computer operations from large scale computing facilities. Such computing facilities house and accommodate a large amount of server, network, and computer equipment to process, store, and exchange data as needed to carry out an organization's operations. Typically, a computer room of a computing facility includes many server racks. Each server rack, in turn, includes many servers and associated computer equipment.
In many rack-mounted computer systems, circuit boards for the system are housed in a rack-mounted chassis. The chassis is commonly in the form of a box having metal panels on the front, back, sides, bottom, and top (the top often in the form of a removable lid). In addition to the main structural panels, such as chassis may have a many other parts such rails, fasteners, grills, and gaskets. Such a chassis may thus add significant cost and complexity to a computer system. Moreover, such a chassis may be heavy and consume a significant amount of space in the rack.
Computer systems to be installed in racks are commonly shipped in cardboard boxes filled with packing materials, such as polystyrene foam. The packing materials may protect a computer system from damage due to loads imposed during shipping, such as shock and vibration. After the computer system is removed from the box, such packing materials are typically discarded.
While the invention is susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments thereof are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the invention to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.